Excerpt: 'The Last Days of Dead Celebrities'

July 10, 2006

Page 8 of 15

"He was so excited on the phone," recalled Yoko. "He said, 'I wrote
two songs.'

"And I said, 'I have two songs. Let's make an EP.'

"And then the next day, he said, 'Now I have two more.'
"And I said, 'Well, maybe now it should be an album.' That's how
it started. We decided to work on a theme, and he was very excited
about that. He just kept thanking me and thanking me."

On Tuesday, August 5, John and Yoko entered the Hit Factory, on
West Fifty-fourth Street in New York, to begin recording the album,
Double Fantasy. Producer Jack Douglas was at the controls, and photographer
Bob Gruen was given almost free reign to document the
sessions with candid pictures.

"I visited the studio on and off from late summer through the end
of the backing track sessions," said Gruen. "I was there a number of
times while they recorded. We really had no set appointments. I just
did things as the situation came up. John was extremely positive about
the music he was making, and excited to be back in the studio. He was
coming from a position of real strength in his life. He had spent five
years out of the limelight, and he had taken time to raise his son and
learn about parenting and about living.

"The album was to be about the relationship between a man and
a woman," said Gruen. "And in that regard it was very much a John
and Yoko project, not just John Lennon. A track of his would follow a
track of hers, and then they'd stop to talk about their feelings and deal
with the relationship. To me, he appeared so grounded."

"I had been in a hundred recording studios with different artists,
and I'd been with John in various studios, as well," said Mintz. "The
recording of Double Fantasy was unique because in many ways it was a
metaphor for the way John's life was coming to completion. All these
recording studios-the Hit Factory, where John and Yoko recorded the
album, or the Record Plant, where it was mixed-have closed-circuit
cameras at the front door. They have this so an engineer can see who is
ringing the buzzer. A lot of sessions sometimes go on into the middle
of the night. The studio may not be in the best neighborhood. So they
need these cameras for security reasons. One of the things I remember
about the Double Fantasy sessions was John and Yoko pinning a large
photograph of Sean to the face of the TV monitor above the recording
console. You couldn't see who was outside, but for John and Yoko it
was more important to see Sean staring down at the console.

"Yoko also created this small anteroom just off of the control
room, a white room, twenty by fifteen," said Mintz, "that she made to
look like a mini version of their living room at the Dakota. The lighting
in this room was lowered, and it was filled with candles and incense.
A Japanese woman named Toshi served tea. It was a room John
and Yoko would go to when there was a lull in the session. I remember
going with them into the room. John was wearing slacks and a
jacket and a shirt that was open at the collar. In that room, he spoke
about the project softly, tentatively, and rhapsodically. It was a quiet
room, unlike any room I'd ever seen at a rock and roll recording session.
None of the other musicians or technical people ever entered
that room. It was mostly a room where John and Yoko could relax."